Speech by Greta Thunberg January 25th, 2019
Our house is on fire.
I am here to say, out house is on fire.
According to the IPPC we have less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place – Including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50 percent.
And please note that those numbers do not include the aspect of equity =, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris agreement work on a Global scale.
Nor does it include tipping points or feedback loops like extremely powerful methane gas released from the thawing Artic permafrost.
At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge that we have failed.
All political movements in their present forms have done so.
And the media has failed to broad public awareness.
But Homo sapiens have not yet failed. Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around. We can still fix this. We can still have everything in out own hands.
But unless we recognize the overall failures of out current systems we most probably don’t stand a chance.
We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly.
Solving the climate crisis in the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it.
We have to stop out emissions of greenhouse gasses.
And either we do that or we don’t
You say that nothing is life is black and white.
But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie.
Either we prevent a 1.5 C of warming or we don’t
Either we avoid setting of an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control-or we don’t.
Either we chose to go on as a civilization, or we don’t.
That is as black and white as it gets.
There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.
Now we all have a choice
We can create transformational action that will safe guard the living conditions for future generations.
Or we can continue with business as usual and fail.
That is up to you and me.
Some say that we should not engage in activism
Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere is sight?
Here in Davos-just like everyone else- everyone is talking about money. It seems that money and growth are the only main concerns.
And since the climate crisis is a crisis that never once had been treated like a crisis, people are simply not aware of the full consequences from out everyday life. People are not aware that there are such a thing as a carbon budget and just how incredibly small that remaining carbon budget is. And that needs to change today.
No other current challenge can match the importance of establishing a wide public awareness and understanding of our rapidly disappearing carbon budget, that should and must become our new global currency and the very heart if our future and present economics.
We are now at a time in history where everyone with any insight of the climate crisis that threatens out civilization and the entire biosphere must speaks out.
In clear language.
Now matter how uncomfortable and unprofitable that may be.
We must change almost everything in our current societies.
The bigger your carbon footprint-The bigger your moral duty.
The bigger your platform- the bigger your duty
Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’
But don’t want you to hope
I don’t want you to feel hopeful.
I want you to panic.
I want you to act like your house is on fire.
I want you to feel the fear I feel everyday.
And I want you to act.
I want you to act as if you would during a crisis.
I want you act as if you house is on fire.
Because it is.
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